“Everybody’s body responds to foods differently,” Clifford says. "Sometimes, our body doesn’t necessarily love every food we eat, or our immune system might recognize something as a ‘foreign invader. While it's possible to have a food allergy, insensitivity, or intolerance to any given food, the most common culprits include alcohol, coffee, corn, dairy, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts, shellfish, soy, and wheat. (Yes, even incredibly healthy foods can cause issues for some people!)

How can people who are suffering from these and other symptoms find out if the culprit is the food they eat? One common strategy is to perform an elimination diet. All about identifying the foods your body does and does not like, elimination diets allow women to make eating choices that sustain them instead of zapping their health and energy.

“Once [triggering] foods are identified, we can modify an individual’s diet to help improve their symptoms and other body functions such as digestion, absorption, microbial balance, and inflammation,” says Yeung.

If you think you might be suffering from a food sensitivity, allergy, or intolerance, then it may be a good idea to try an elimination diet. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as ditching ice cream for a few days and, if you feel less bloated, assuming you’re lactose intolerant. Instead, done right, an elimination diet requires precise planning and monitoring.

Here, nine must-follow tips for how to do an elimination diet safely and effectively.

Talk to Your Doc or Registered Dietitian

Before undertaking an elimination diet, consult a professional so they can ensure that you’re conducting the diet effectively and that you’re still able to meet your nutritional needs, Clifford says. After all, if you decide to try cutting out gluten, it's easy to not get the fiber you need. And if you eliminate dairy, you could be putting yourself at risk of too-low vitamin D and calcium levels. Your R.D. won't let those issues happen.

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It's also important to talk to your doctor about any issues that you've had in the past (or currently have!) with disordered eating or anxiety, Yeung says. Especially in those with a tendency to control their eating, elimination diet to turn into food restriction or a hyperfocus on "good" and "bad" foods, and your health professional can help you to ensure that you follow your elimination diet in the healthiest way possible, both physically and emotionally.

Determine Your Baseline

“Before starting an elimination diet, keep a food and symptom diary to help identify patterns between eating habits and symptoms,” says Yeung. This will help you and your healthcare professional figure out which food or foods you should try to eliminate. For example, if you notice that you regularly get itchy after eating walnuts and almonds, you might decide that you want to try eliminating tree nuts. It's totally possible that you will decide to eliminate multiple foods or types of foods.

The important thing is to eat normally and thoroughly document both everything you eat and how you feel after eating it. Track for at least a couple of weeks before making any decisions about what you'll try cutting.

Time It Right

The second you spot a potential link in your log, it can be tempting to jump right into your elimination diet. Don't. Instead, keep eating normally, track your symptoms, and start planning. On day one of your diet, you should feel knowledgeable about the exact foods you'll need to avoid, prepared with lots of well-rounded recipes, and ready to read food labels with confidence, says Meghan Sedivy, R.D., L.D.N., a registered dietitian with Fresh Thyme Farmers Market.

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In terms of picking an actual day to start, choose a time when you know that you will easily have complete control over what you do (and don't) eat. So, no, vacation isn't the best time to try out something like this.

Eliminate Everything At Once

If you decide that you should try eliminating multiple foods or food groups, remove all of them at once. Again, it's important to do this with a doctor or RD's supervision. After all, if you're cutting dairy, gluten, shellfish, and nuts... getting the nutrients you need is going to require some help, says Sedivy.

Watch a hot doctor explain what you should do about an iron deficiency:

Give It At Least One to Two Weeks

Your doctor or dietician can help you determine the appropriate time period for your elimination diet, which will largely depend on the food(s) you’re eliminating. However, your body requires a good week or two to recoup from any potentially triggering foods.

It will be tempting to quit the process early, but Yeung says it’s important to stick it out. “Many people stop the elimination diet early because they are feeling better shortly after starting, but by doing this, you risk eliminating foods that you do not necessarily need to because you didn’t go through the reintroduction phase,” she says. “This could cause imbalanced diets and stop you from eating foods that you may really enjoy and can tolerate.”

Avoid Making Simultaneous Lifestyle Changes

“I’ve often seen people make many other lifestyle and medication changes [at the same time that they start an elimination diet],” says Yeung. “This makes it much more challenging to determine dietary sources of the symptoms.”

For example, if you start taking probiotics at the same time you eliminate soy, it will be hard to know if you’re feeling differently because of the supplement or because of the elimination, she says. During your elimination diet, it should be your only lifestyle change in progress.

Reintroduce Foods One At a Time

After eliminating everything that's a potential trigger for you, begin the challenge phase of reintroducing one food group at a time. You do this with the intention of provoking symptoms, Yeung says.

If, after a week or two, the food that you reintroduced has (or hasn't) caused any issues, resume complete elimination for another week or two. Then repeat the process until you have tested each food, going back to complete elimination between each round, she says. Yes, this will take a while!

Log Everything

Again with the logging. Both during your elimination and reintroduction phases, Clifford recommends tracking, tracking, tracking. “Write down what foods you ate, how much, and where you got it,” she says.

Also take time to reflect on how you feel after eating, whether there are any changes to your digestion or energy levels, and whether you can tolerate certain serving sizes, but not others. You could keep this record in a journal or on your phone or download a food tracking app.

Learn About the Consequences

It’s important to know if you have a food allergy, intolerance, or sensitivity—but it’s even more important to know how to respond to that information.

For example, she says, if you’re lactose intolerant you won’t cause harm to yourself if you eat lactose. (Although you might experience some uncomfortable side effects like gas or diarrhea.) But if you have celiac disease (confirmed by a intestinal biopsy) and eat gluten, you could harm your gut's ability to properly take in the nutrients your body needs, says Jacqueline Wolf, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

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